systems were planned, the first to concentrate on waste management systems.

NASA continued to explore the possibility of obtaining information from underseas habitats that might be applicable to manned space flight. Project Tektite, a joint program of the U.S. Navy, the Department of Interior, and NASA, in conjunction with an industrial contractor, involves emplacing an underseas habitat on the ocean floor, about 50 feet down, and manning it with a single four-man crew of marine scientists for a 60-day period. The objective of this scientific experiments project is to study marine biology, the physiological effects on man, work proficiency, and the social cohesion of the crew.

The Interagency Committee on Back Contamination reviewed certain testing aspects of the Lunar Receiving Laboratory and made recommendations to NASA regarding quarantine for the lunar program. This involved recommendations and requirements of the Federal regulatory agencies which must be satisfied before the NASA laboratory can be certified.

The NASA Compendium on Human Responses to the Aerospace Environment, which went to press during this period, will provide a basic reference for the Aerospace Medical Community.

Logistics

Significant transportation costs savings were being achieved with the concurrent marine shipment of F-1 engines and S-II stages aboard the USNS Point Barrow from the West Coast to Michoud. Formerly, F-1 engines were transported by aircraft. Additional savings were resulting from the increased use of the Point Barrow for moving S-IC and S-II stages from Michoud to KSC. (Fig. 1-13.)

Logistics attention was directed to defining and assuring special management of launch critical repair parts of the Apollo program. Initial efforts were fruitful in integrating and computerizing into a single data bank certain selected Apollo contractor material inventories at the Kennedy Space Center. In another area, Apollo-wide standards were issued for preserving, packaging, and handling critical and high cost hardware items to reduce shipping and handling damage.

SCIENTIFIC

INVESTIGATIONS

IN SPACE

Continuing its comprehensive studies of the space environment and of solar phenomena, NASA launched an Orbiting Geophysical Observatory, Explorer XXXVII, and IRIS, a European Space Research Organization satellite. In addition, Surveyor VII was landed on the moon, and equipment was being installed in a Lunar Receiving Laboratory, built at the MSC as a quarantine facility for astronauts and lunar samples. Finally, a geophysical data transmitting station (the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package) which the astronauts will place on the moon was being developed.

Physics and Astronomy Programs

Orbiting Observatories

On March 4, the fifth Orbiting Geophysical Observatory (fig. 2–1) was launched into an elliptical orbit with an apogee of 92,000 miles. Its mission is to continue the work of OGO-I and OGO-III, and consequently its orbit is similar to theirs. The 1350-pound satellite carries 24 scientific experiments which will enable it to make a comprehensive study of the earth's space environment and its relationship to the sun during a period of maximum solar activity. It spends much of its 63-hour orbital period outside the magnetosphere of the carth so that its instruments can investigate this region as well as the magnetosphere.

Like other spacecraft in this series, OGO-V is a rectangular box with extending booms and two solar cell paddles resembling wings. Stabilized in three axes, it is able to face the earth at all times. Its experiments developed by six U.S. and four foreign universities, four Government laboratories, and two private companies-are concerned with the trapped radiation belt, the bow shock where the particles of the solar wind meet the earth's magnetic field, the geomagnetic tail of the earth, the solar wind, and cosmic rays. Two electric field experiments and a third using a spark chamber represent major

advances in space instrumentation. One electric field experiment was furnished by the Goddard Space Flight Center, the other by an industrial firm. These will supply further data on the bow shock (shock wave) caused by the impingement of the solar wind at high speeds on the magnetic field of the earth. Although observed, the shock wave remains undetermined. The spark chamber, designed by the University of Southampton (England), is used in high energy physics studies of the surface of the earth. This is the first flight of the instrument on a satellite, where it will study gamma radiation in cosmic rays.

After meeting the initial scientific objectives of its mission by midJune, OGO-V continued to perform well and its further operation was planned. The onboard experiment designed at the University of Paris provided a detailed survey of the hydrogen gas cloud surrounding the earth. The spacecraft also supplied the first detailed measurements of the electric fields at the shock and magnetospheric boundaries, and the first spark chamber observations of gamma rays above the atmosphere. During March, four OGOs operated simultaneously to provide measurements from 68 related experiments located in various positions in space.

Explorer XXXVII

NASA orbited Explorer XXXVII on March 5, providing the launch vehicle for this joint NASA-Navy project. The Naval Research Laboratory designed and built the 195-pound spin-stabilized satellite. This Explorer, which will continue the Laboratory's solar studies, is a 12-sided body, 30 inches in diameter and 27 inches high (fig. 2-2). Although it was placed in a more elliptical orbit than planned (perigee 324 miles, apogee 545 miles), the spacecraft was meeting all its scientific objectives. The satellite's X-ray photometers, Geiger tubes, photomultipliers, and solar aspect systems measure and monitor the sun's X-rays and selected solar ultraviolet emissions.

IRIS (ESRO-II)

The third physics and astronomy satellite launched in this period was the international IRIS (ESRO-II), built by the European Space Research Organization (ESRO) and launched cooperatively on May 16 (ch. 7). IRIS is a spin stabilized cylindrical craft, 19 inches in diameter and 21 inches long, with a protruding 35-inch long central tube. A nearly polar orbit (215 to 680 miles) was chosen to keep the satellite in almost continuous sunlight. IRIS carries five experiments designed by scientists from the Imperial College of London, the University College London, the University of Leicester, and the University of Leeds; an experiment from the University of Utrecht; and an experiment from the Centre d'Études Nucléaires de Saclay. Concerned with cosmic rays and solar X-rays, all experiments were working as designed.

Pioneer

Pioneer VI, launched in December 1965, continued to transmit data from all of its experiments, as did Pioneer VII, orbited in August 1966. Pioneer VIII (launched in December 1967, 18th Semiannual Report, p. 45) flew through the earth's magnetic tail at a distance of 1,750,000 miles in January. It found this tail region to be more like a turbulent